|
The Muggletonians, named after Lodowicke Muggleton, were a small Protestant Christian movement which began in 1651 when two London tailors announced they were the last prophets foretold in the biblical Book of Revelation. The group grew out of the Ranters and in opposition to the Quakers. Muggletonian beliefs include a hostility to philosophical reason, a scriptural understanding of how the universe works and a belief that God appeared directly on Earth as Christ Jesus. A consequential belief is that God takes no notice of everyday events on Earth and will not generally intervene until it is meant to bring the world to an end. Muggletonians avoided all forms of worship or preaching, and met only for discussion and socializing. The movement was egalitarian, apolitical and pacifist, and resolutely avoided evangelism. Members attained a degree of public notoriety by cursing those who reviled their faith. This practice ceased in the mid-nineteenth century. One of the last to be cursed was the novelist Sir Walter Scott. The faith attracted public attention in 1979 when Philip Noakes left the entire Muggletonian archive of correspondence, general papers and publications to the British Library. ==Origins== The movement was born on 3 February 1651 (old style) when a London tailor, John Reeve, received a commission from God "to the hearing of the ear as a man speaks to a friend."〔John Reeves A Divine Looking-Glass 1652 Chapter 23, verse 22〕 Reeve was told four things:- *"I have given thee understanding of my mind in the Scriptures above all men in the world." *"Look into thy own body, there thou shalt see the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Hell." *"I have chosen thee a last messenger for a great work, unto this bloody unbelieving world. And I have given thee Lodowick Muggleton to be thy mouth." *"I have put the two-edged sword of my spirit into thy mouth, that whoever I pronounce blessed, through thy mouth, is blessed to eternity; and whoever I pronounce cursed through thy mouth is cursed to eternity."〔T. L. Underwood "The Acts of the Witnesses" New York: Oxford University Press 1999 p. 142/3〕 Reeve believed that he and his cousin, Lodowicke Muggleton, were the two witnesses spoken of in the third verse of the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation. After Reeve's death Muggleton had a brief struggle for control of the group with Laurence Clarkson, a former Ranter, and subsequently with those followers of John Reeve who did not accept Muggleton's authority. The Muggletonians emphasized the Millennium and the Second Coming of Christ, and believed, among other things, that the soul is mortal; that Jesus is God (and not a member of a Trinity); that when Jesus died there was no God in Heaven, and Moses and Elijah looked after Heaven until Jesus' resurrection; that Heaven is six miles above Earth; that God is between five and six feet tall; and that any external religious ceremony is not necessary. Some scholars think that Muggletonian doctrine may have influenced the work of the artist and poet William Blake.〔This is extensively argued in ''Witness Against the Beast'' by E. P. Thompson: Cambridge University Press, 1994〕 Recent attempts have been made to locate the movement within earlier intellectual traditions, most notably the Eternal Gospel of Joachim of Fiore. However, Dr Marjorie Reeves has examined the evidence and concludes "the case for a recognisable Joachimist influence among seventeenth-century English prophets falls to the ground."〔Marjorie Reeves and Warwick Gould "Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel" Oxford: Clarendon Press (1987) p. 21〕 There had been at least one earlier appearance of a claim about the Two Last Witnesses, which John Reeve knew about.〔In A Divine Looking-Glass chap 24 verse 36, John Reeve refers to Bull and Varnum as predecessors. These were Richard Farnham and John Bull, two London weavers, who came to the conclusion in 1636 that they were the Two Witnesses. They were jailed and unable to assume their roles before their deaths.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Muggletonianism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|